Keeper (31 page)

“Lozano’s here,”
Rubin said.

Sure enough, the detective was standing just inside the door, next to Rubin, who indicated Werthin’s position.
“He wants to know if she should be removed. ”

“No need yet,” I said.

I watched Rubin relay that to the detective, who nodded, made brief eye contact with me. He remained by the door.

I resumed scanning, trying to concentrate on the crowd, trying to keep tabs on Mary Werthin. She didn’t move much, barely reacting to Romero’s speech, even when the crowd applauded something. But she flinched every time Felice said the word “abortion.”

Cute effect, I thought.

“Atticus, ”
It was Natalie.
“Bridgett Logan is on her way up to the New York Room. ”

“Confirmed.”

“She says she needs to talk to you.”

“It’ll have to wait.”

“Obviously.
”

A man seated on the floor by the front row moved suddenly, and I zeroed in on him. “Movement, floor left, front row,” I said.

“Responding,”
Rubin said, and I saw him step forward in my periphery. The man reached for a pocket and I started calculating my takedown, then stopped when I saw he had removed a handkerchief from his pocket. He blew his nose quietly, checked the cloth, then folded it again and returned it to his coat.

“Hands clear,
” Rubin said.

“Confirmed.”

“Logan’s here,”
he said.

I glanced over at the door and saw Bridgett standing there, and we made eye contact and she grinned. She looked amazingly out of place, and a couple of heads turned and stared at her. After a moment, she started down the aisle to where Selby was parked.

I went back to scanning the crowd, listening to the traffic in my ear.

“. . . will not change. This right of self-determination will not go away,” Dr. Romero said. “It has existed for thousands of years. Abortion is only a small part of it. The battle over the right to one’s own body will continue. Making any of these services illegal, restricting them through claims of immorality or decadence, will do nothing to remove the inherent right of freedom of choice.”

She stopped speaking. For a moment she just looked over her audience. Then she said, “That’s my talk. I want to thank you for coming, for listening with open minds. I’ve only one more thing to add.

“The last several weeks leading up to this conference I can say, honestly, have been the most difficult of my life. Certain organizations, certain individuals, were determined that I should not speak today.

“I do not know why I was singled out among all the doctors and clinics in Manhattan. It’s an arbitrariness that cost the life of my daughter, Katherine. It’s an arbitrariness that has revealed all the worst about the human spirit to me. Frequently in the last few days, I reconsidered my decision to attend. There hardly seemed a point.”

Dr. Romero stopped long enough to take a drink of water from the paper cup on the podium.

“When I resolved I would still attend today, I did so simply to spite those people who had worked so hard to keep me from coming,” she said. “I did it as an act of defiance, which I told myself was for the memory of my daughter.

“Arriving here this morning, surrounded by policemen and bodyguards, I expected the worst.

“When I read the first card given to me this morning, I feared what it would say. The letters I’ve received in the past have been hardly kind.

“This card offered sympathy and condolences.

“The card was from an organization called Christian Mothers for Life. An antiabortion group, a pro-life group, call it what you will.

“It made me weep.

“I had forgotten, you see? I had forgotten exactly what this conference was about. My motive in attending had changed. I did not arrive this morning wanting peace. I wanted vindication. Victory.

“And this card made me see that I had become exactly the kind of person this conference was designed to reach out to,” Felice said. “If I can be reached, after all that has happened, if I can see moderation and hope, then we all can.

“Thank you again.”

“
They’re going to their feet,”
Rubin said in my ear.

He needn’t have bothered with the transmission. They were up before he had finished speaking, applauding so loud that I almost lost what he was saying. I saw Veronica Selby beaming, her smile radiant, clapping with the rest of the crowd. Bridgett stood behind her, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

And I didn’t see Mary Werthin.

“I’ve lost sight of Werthin,” I said.

“Can’t see her,”
Dale said.
“Too much traffic.”

People were starting to push forward in the aisles, and I saw more flowers being held up, more cards. The crowd was a mass of noise, still applauding, now cheering. Felice took a step to the edge of the platform, taking someone’s offered pen and program, and she was blushing as she autographed it. I moved in closer to her, scanning like mad as too many people pushed toward us. Romero began handing me cards and bouquets, and I began dropping them in a pile behind me just as quickly.

“Natalie, get in here,” I said.

“Confirmed. ”

“. . . see her,”
Rubin came in.
“I see her, she’s got something in her hands. ”

“Repeat?” I said.

“Werthin’s got something in her hands, it’s not her purse.
...”

“I can’t see her,”
Dale said.

“What’s in her hands?” I asked Rubin.

“. . .
something, looks like a book.
...”

“Where?” I said.

“Just fantastic,” a young black woman was saying to Dr. Romero. “God bless you, Doctor. . . .”

“She’s in the crush, I’ve lost her, I can’t see her,”
Rubin said.

I pulled Felice back a half step, further from the edge, but she went right back, taking another card and transfer-ing it to me, thanking the couple that handed it to her. Then she stepped off the platform, taking another offered pen and program, scribbling her name. I dropped off after her, trying to stay tight.

“Pogo’s off the platform,” I said.

“. . .
her,”
Dale said.
“Ten feet up, center aisle.”

I couldn’t see anything in the crowd. “Hands?”

“
Can’t see them. No purse.”

“Rubin?”

“Nothing, boss, shit,”
he said.

“She’s moving up,”
Dale said.
“No, damnit, I’ve got to move in. ”

“Hold your position,” I told him, taking another bunch of carnations and dropping them behind me.

“Confirmed. ”

A woman with silver hair held up a wicker basket for Romero to take, a shiny white bow on the handle. I flinched as Felice grabbed it, taking it from her as gently as I could and setting it on the platform beside me. Turning back around, I saw Mary Werthin at the front of the line, holding a pen and a hardcover book.

Abortuaries
and the Death of America,
by Jonathan Crowell.

Felice was leaning to take the book, but then she recognized Werthin and stopped long enough for me to move forward and intercept. “I’ll give it to her,” I said.

“I want her to sign it,” Werthin said. “She has to sign it.” She pushed the book forward, trying to get it around me.

I blocked her arm with my body, and she drew the book back. “I’ll give it to her,” I said once more. Under the edge of the cover, opposite the spine, a sliver of blue fabric jutted free. The edge looked rough and curly. I took the book with my right hand, Werthin still holding it.

It was too heavy.

She tried to jerk the book back, saying, “She has to sign it!”

Then the adrenaline dumped and I thought a lot at once. Velcro, I thought. Velcro keeping the book shut and the book’s too heavy and it’s not a gun inside this book, no, it’s a bomb.

I keyed my transmitter, and as I did it I knew that the bomb wasn’t radio-controlled, couldn’t be with all the radio traffic in the hotel, or else it would’ve gone off as soon as Werthin arrived. Wasn’t motion-sensitive, or else it would’ve gone off as she brought it through the crowd. Must be a timer, must be a timer or a switch. I swung my left foot around and behind Werthin’s legs, jerking the book toward me with my right.

She’s pregnant, I remembered.

Then I hit her in the middle of the sternum with the palm of my left hand, sending her back over my leg, into the crowd of people still milling there, looking shocked. She released the book when she fell.

And I said, “Bomb.”

The adrenaline made it come out far louder than I would’ve liked.

People began backing away, and then someone screamed, and almost en masse, they turned and ran for the door.

“Dale, get over here,” I yelled, and he was already halfway to me, climbing over the seats as I turned and pulled Felice back onto the platform, away from the people, out of the crowd. Most of the people were packed into the far side of the room already, pushing for the exit, and I heard Rubin try to transmit and then give up as he was washed out by the panic.

“Evac,” I said. I said it three times, and tried to make it clear.

“En route,
” Natalie said.

Dr. Romero’s eyes were wide and on mine and then she looked at my right hand and took a quick step back, her left shoe knocking the wicker basket over. A stuffed bear fell out onto the floor. The bear had a yellow hat and a blue jacket, and something was pinned to its coat.

I’m holding a bomb, I realized.

Bridgett shouted, “What do I do?”

“Hold her,” I said, indicating Werthin with my head. Dale had made the platform and had already drawn his weapon, scanning for a secondary threat. I looked, too, and saw Veronica Selby still seated in her wheelchair, eyes on us. She was bone-white.

That was it. The crowd was still pushing out the door with one mind.

Bridgett went down and grabbed Werthin, who was trying to slide away on her rump. Dale went down to help her.

“You can’t do this, you pushed me, you bastard,” Werthin kept screaming.

“Natalie, where the fuck are you?” I asked.

“En route, goddamnit,”
she said.

“All units, repeat, we are evacuating, we are evacuating,” I said. “Get Pogo the hell out of here, now.”

I saw Natalie push through the doorway, running to us, followed by Rubin and Lozano. As soon as Dale saw them, he went to the side door. He opened it with a sharp push, stepping back, then looked down the corridor, his gun leading.

Bridgett was telling Werthin that she had the option to stop moving voluntarily or to become permanently disabled.

“Rubin, get Selby out of here,” I shouted to him, and he veered off from heading to us and went to her wheelchair. Lozano made straight for Werthin. He reached her as Natalie finally made the platform, grabbing Felice with both arms.

“Do exactly what I tell you,” Natalie said to the doctor.

“But Veronica—”

“Rubin’s handling it,” I said. “Get out of here. Now!”

She started to say something more but Natalie lifted her off the platform and then ran her to where Dale stood by the exit. Rubin had Selby almost to the door, and they were practically bowled over by three more men coming in, one marshal, Fowler, and an NYPD uniform. The uniform took over on Selby’s wheelchair and Rubin headed back toward me.

“No,” I yelled at him. “Not me. Go with Pogo, damnit.”

He stopped, looked at me, then turned and followed in the direction Natalie and Dale had gone.

Lozano was cuffing Werthin, who screamed that he was trying to kill her baby.

“You’re under arrest,” he said, pulling her to her feet.

“What kind is it?” I asked her, showing her the book.

“Rot in hell, you bastard, you tried to—”

“What kind of bomb is it?” I asked her again.

Her mouth stayed open but she issued no sound, and all that was in her eyes before turned to panic. She tried to run for the door, but Lozano had a good grip, and the marshal helped him hold her. She said, “Oh my God, oh my God, that’s why I wasn’t supposed to open it, oh sweet Jesus—”

“Who gave this to you?”

“It’s—oh God, I swear I didn’t know,” she said, turning her head from me to Bridgett to Fowler to the marshal, trying to convince all of us at once. “He gave it to me, I swear—”

“Who?” Bridgett asked her.

“Mr. Rich, he gave it to me, he told me to have the butcher sign it, oh my God.”

“Get her out of here,” Fowler said, pulling his radio. He keyed it and said, “All units, search the immediate area for Sean Rich. Consider him armed and extremely dangerous. He’s wanted for questioning.”

The marshal helped Lozano remove Werthin from the room. At this point it wasn’t truly necessary; she had become almost docile.

“I didn’t know, oh God, I swear I didn’t know. . . .” she kept saying.

“The bomb squad should be here any moment,” Fowler said to me. He said it very gently, as if he was talking to a child.

“Oh, good,” I said.

“You want to put the book down now, Atticus?” he said.

I looked at the book in my right hand, watched a drop of sweat from my forehead hit the cover, heard it splat on the glossy surface. “Yeah, I’d like that, Scott,” I said.

“Go ahead, then,” he said.

I looked at the book. I looked at him. I looked at Bridgett. “Maybe you guys should leave the room,” I said.

“Not without you,” Bridgett said.

“See,” I said. “I don’t know what the mechanism is, and if it’s a timer, it could go off any moment. So better that there’s just me here, you see?”

“And you’ll do what, exactly?”

“I’m going to put the book down,” I said. “Then I’m going to lay the podium over the book, to tamp the blast. Then I’m going to run away. Very fast.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Fowler said softly.

“See you in a minute,” I said.

Scott started to back out of the room. Bridgett didn’t move.

“Go,” I said.

She didn’t move.